Baker pointed out that he is about to be in the Radio Hall of Fame and has won Sonys. Which may be naff of him, but hey, one can understand the shock. The reason any of us hacks go "Phew!" rather than preen when we get awards is that we craftily reckon that's our mortgage safe for another year – until the gong is safely forgotten and the editor can stick the knife in. Baker even upped the ante by mentioning his former cancer treatment, as if that made the decision worse. As if cancer treatment was a free pass to broadcasting eternity.
Well, I am the last person to leap to the defence of pinheaded weasels, or to deny that the BBC grows layers of pointless management like an old oak grows damp, furry lichen. But Danny, Danny, is this the way to go? Damning BBC middle-managers is too easy, like complaining about drizzle or uneven pavements. Some of the weasels are OK. Some presumably put him on the air in the first place. And nobody really knows whether this is a real "refresh" or a financial cut; local radio is already frugal, and reports of what Baker and his mates get paid suggest that it won't save much. But what we do now know is that Baker values himself very highly indeed, and will do anything to enlarge his niche and grab the headlines – and that he has made the fatal, if common, mistake of thinking that the possessive pronoun in "my show" has the same weight as in "my hat" or "my sock drawer". It doesn't.
Controllers, commissioners, schedulers put us on air and take us off. At the BBC, admittedly, they have a history of doing the latter without much grace; but that is a question of manners. Why be even ruder in return? Why not do the show like a pro, devote the last minute to saying goodbye in a faintly surprised and – if you must – wounded tone, and confine yourself to a couple of waspish interviews with the other media and a call to your agent? I hope I will. Can't be sure, though. The Danny route does sound as if it was fun while it lasted. Might get the headscarf and dark glasses, and carry on like Mrs Overall at the end of Acorn Antiques: "That show was my life!"
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Scents promise to be big bucks
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford has a new exhibition, a mirror-maze through which you follow "The Waft that Woos" to a "Sensual" oil-burner in the middle. Progress is impeded by the pheromonal surge of human panic, as baffled theatregoers run into their own dishevelled selves and round corners to find their own faces staring back.
But the artists, Bompas and Parr, are right in fashion because "scentmospherics" are big business. House-sellers putting coffee beans under the grill have known this for years, as have theme parks (the Jorvik Centre charmed my children years ago with Viking poo smells). Now an excitable PR release offers customised reeks to theatres, cinemas and hotel foyers. Coastal venues add sea-scents and country hotels fake honeysuckle, lest the real things fail to exude enough pong to "directly access the brain's limbic system". Mandarin Oriental hotels, it claims, hire a smell of, er, oranges.
Do workplaces also not deserve our full limbic attention? That huge IPC Media tower in Southwark, where publications live hugger-mugger, could keep a coil of tarry rope in the Yachting Monthly office, waft scones and baby powder through the women's weeklies, and conceal oily rag in the motoring journals.
Newspaper offices, currently smelling mainly of panic and old sandwiches, could theme themselves to their desired readership: chips and football boots; taramasalata and Jo Malone; or wet labrador and roast lamb. Banks could stick to sour grapefruit and stinking fish, Whitehall to wet umbrellas and despair.
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The gale that took Biscuit's ear
As we watch the tragedy of New York, some of us remember the lesser but dramatic UK hurricane of 25 years ago this autumn. A tree crushed the end of our house, mercifully without casualties, and the power was off for a fortnight (when the lights came back on, the corners were so filthy I turned them right off again).
But as time passes, it is the good stories which last. Brian, a BBC Radio Suffolk listener, rang in to say how his mother Doris, now 94, called to inform Michael Fish that the silence of the cuckoo portended a high wind. "They said 'don't be so daft'. You're nothing to them as long as they get your licence fee." But they kept the Jack Russell indoors that night – until Doris went out. "She did leave her tea-towels on the line, Woolworths 1975, good quality." When she tried to rescue them, the fence blew down and the dog, Biscuit, ran off. "Turned up two days later in Ufford. Never sin anything like it, looked like it'd been in The Wizard of Oz. Lost an ear." Pause. "We never did find that."
Such is the stuff of history. And of local radio. Salutary to remember that it's not just the starry Danny Bakers or the weasels who make it. It's Doris and Brian, phoning in.
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